Maria R. Lee

Leveraging Big Data and Business Analytics [Guest editors' introduction]

Big data projects and programs provide tremendous opportunity for organizations looking to transform their operations, innovate in their markets, and better serve their customers; however, these initiatives must be based on sound approaches and principles and not fads or empty vendor claims. This special issue aims to promote a better understanding of big data to foster wider deployment of big data approaches and a new era of business analytics capabilities.

From BYOD to BYOA, Phishing, and Botnets

Not too long ago, desktop computers were provisioned for users, and applications were carefully vetted and controlled. Now, CIOs are dealing with laptops, smartphones, tablets, and a raft of new tools and technologies that present significant security, reliability, and IP protection challenges. Moreover, users have come to expect an information experience on par with that of their personal lives. Clearly, new policies must be enacted and new tools deployed to reduce risks and keep up with growing user expectations, but balancing accessibility and security has proven to be a significant challenge.

Understanding Social Computing Research

Social computing is an emerging field, encompassing a wide range of topics. A broad understanding of the major topics involved in social computing is important for both scholars and practitioners. The authors present and analyze the voluminous social computing related studies to date, applying document co-citation analysis, pathfinder networks, core-document analysis, and the Herfindahl-Hirschman index. The results not only provide insight to this subject area but also afford a conduit for the future research in this discipline.

The New Wearable Computing Frontier

Driven by advances in mobile computing and communications, ambient intelligence, and ubiquitous sensors, wearable computing facilitates a new form of human-to-computer interaction via small, on-body devices that are always connected, hands-free and less distractive, and have multiple access opportunities. This always-ready capability leads to a new form of synergy between humans and computers, offering consistency and multitasking capabilities.

Taiwan's Journey to the Cloud: Progress and Challenges

Taiwan is making massive investments in cloud computing, transforming itself into an advanced developer of cloud technology. Despite its reputation in hardware manufacturing, Taiwan isnow gearing up to develop and offer new products and services to the global market.

The IT in Practice Symposium

In July, COMPSAC 2015 held a symposium on IT in Practice (ITiP) that aimed to serve the interests and needs of IT practitioners, application developers, IT managers, and CXOs from business, industry, and government, as well as academics and researchers. The symposium presented an interactive forum for sharing and gaining valuable insights and for actively engaging with peers worldwide. This article provides some highlights from the ITiP symposium.

Toward Smart Machine Tools in Taiwan

By bringing together advances in augmented reality, cloud computing, and virtual design, simulation researchers and developers are working toward more automated and smart machine tools to ensure quality despite a limited amount of design time through science-based automated design.

The Graph Database: Jack of All Trades or Just Not SQL?

This special issue of IT Professional focuses on the graph database. The graph database, a relatively new phenomenon, is well suited to the burgeoning information era in which we are increasingly becoming immersed. Here, the guest editors briefly explain how a graph database works, its relation to the relational database management system (RDBMS), and its quantitative and qualitative pros and cons, including how graph databases can be harnessed in a hybrid environment. They also survey the excellent articles submitted for this special issue.

Mobile Data Analytics

Mobile data analytics (MDA) is a growing area among IT professionals, entrepreneurs, and academics. MDA deals with data analytics, especially big data analytics, on resource-constrained mobile devices. This special issue discusses the most recent advances in analytics for mobile devices.

Guest editors' introduction: IT in Smart Cities

Smart cities are becoming a megatrend strategy for applying ICT to improve quality of life in urban environments. Recent technological advances have accelerated smart city development, and the pervasiveness of digital sensors and control systems has enabled myriad applications. Effective smart city systems should be instrumented, interconnected, and intelligent. This special issue provides compelling examples of smart city systems that can enable the optimization or redesign of existing services and identify new value-creation opportunities.